Poisoned Leg
Blackened skin, black ash
of derma crusting
black pumice. Liquid leg
liquid lava.
There is no light in
the limb now, only black
and mottled purple.
Sickly yellow
marks of green
pick the scabbing wound
knee gives way to nub
gives way to dying.
Previously published by VerseWrights.
Pungi
Her venom loosed, a charmed cobra
dances and sways to a hollow flute;
spits death as everyone wipes their eyes.
There is little pleasure to be had now.
We have said, Let us not speak ill
of those who have passed-on before.
The viper shakes the rattle.
I do not grieve her.
I will not grieve her.
She holds his seed.
Death seeks her out—
a fitting companion.
An earlier version was previously published by Red Eft Review
Recovery
She walked on hot coals
bare feet on embers,
slid down a rock-face
inches before waterfall abyss,
stood naked before a lover
with full, round belly—
saggy swaying breasts
pinned herself—
yellow skinned—
to a hospital bed,
stomach filled with bile
liver distended, pancreas diseased,
kidneys sputtering to spit
a pool of bloody piss
cut her womb wide open
uterus swollen and leaking,
fell to hands and knees
so often that her limbs
were meaty stumps of crimson.
A snake, she shed her skin,
body cut on rock, split away,
her new growth, an open wound.
An earlier version was previously published by Eunoia Review
Female Pattern Baldness
As a child, Grandma made
my clothes, picked colorful swatches
from fabric stores. Girls in
Jordache Jeans kicked mud
on my flowery pantsuits.
We drove our Pinto station wagon
to garage sales in nice neighborhoods.
I was 13 and it was That Dress
fitting just so on my young breasts,
upturned, floating, proud.
Later in homeroom, Tammy
with her snapping gum sneers,
Bitch, you’re wearing my trash.
During gym class, I throw her penny loafers
in the toilet, my only detention
and totally worth it.
At 44 it is no different.
I’m dragged to a wig shop by mother,
my giant head stretching the cap
of thick Barbie-doll hair.
An earlier version previously published by Eunoia Review
Flea
A fleeting view of a long skirt
wispy over ankles, a swish
and caress of fabric, tick-tick-tick
of leather high-heeled boots
spine sharp, stiff and angry
A cauldron, lidded and boiling,
steam hisses out pores,
an envious flea bites beneath
a high-necked collar,
ecstasy drinks hot red blood,
turns the brown husk ruddy,
gluts itself on irritated skin,
plasma drench
flesh inflamed
with unbearable itch
starchy cotton bears
into the fleshy wound
this most tender of throats
An earlier version previously published by Mad Swirl
Mother in her youth
She told me about
the commune,
how they sat together
in a warehouse space
two weeks of every year
drank Darjeeling tea
while writing shitty poems
and making free love
beneath an industrial ceiling,
whispered suspicions
of who among them
might be the next Kerouac.
I romanticize this version of Mother,
a neophyte bent over
a pile of handwritten pages,
plowed by a bearded anonymous lover.
Mother writes to Henry Miller
Henry, take me to Paris
or let me find you there.
I will be a rich, bored wife
with sad weepy eyes, a fat wallet
and an ache to lie beneath you
because I’m tired of the rest.
I will be a Russian writer
deluded that love exists
apart from tragedy.
I’ll take your values as my own,
toss and turn with lust and guilt
beneath you before you set me free.
I will be a Parisian whore
cheap and base and gleeful,
hold my pussy in my hands,
offer my sweet fuzzy muff
like an itch to be scratched.
I will be the sniveling fat spouse
of a sniveling nasty man
who feeds your need with my food
and money. You’ll sleep on a cot
in our house. I’ll hate you,
and you’ll hate me
but we’ll fuck anyway.
I will be a lonely artist,
feast my starving body
on the banquet of your words.
They will be too rich for me
but I will eat them as I offer myself.
You will call me by name
until you eat of my body,
then I will be “Cunt” like
every woman you’ve slept with
in your books and dreams.
An earlier version previously published by Writer’s Post Journal
